Community Development

There are a lot of acronyms here at World Renew: PAG, NEICORD, FOTADEL, SLDS, CECS...
They can be a little overwhelming until you know that each acronym simply represents one of the 84 organizations World Renew partners with in 31 countries around the globe. Our partners work at the local level, helping identify a community’s needs and its capacity to implement and sustain solutions to those needs.
Each acronym represents enormous potential for changing stories. So read on to discover how World Renew and Haitian partners PWOFOD and ADJGH are fostering local leadership and development in the community of Gressier, Haiti.

World Renew longs for community transformation. Transformation happens when communities learn to develop, implement, and sustain their own solutions to problems. World Renew partners with organizations around the world to provide support as communities do this hard work. When a community is involved in assessing their own capacity for change, the odds of transformation are strengthened.

Earlier this year, I traveled to Leogane, Haiti and saw again how people can change their own story. I was there for the final evaluation of a three-year project. After the earthquake in 2010, World Renew worked with a series of farmers’ associations in the areas of Fond des Boudins and Palmiste a Vin. As the disaster response work wrapped up, we received funding for three more years to implement community organizing and livelihoods activities in 17 communities of those areas.

In Tanzania, World Renew's partner Asasi Ya Chagua Maisha has been working to help girls and young women caught up in sex work. The young women, ages 15-25, are living in three communities on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam.

Growing up in a low-income community in Senegal or Nigeria can too often mean a higher rate of early marriage, early pregnancy, or transmission of HIV or another sexually transmitted infection (STI). Sexual coercion and abuse are also common for young women, and the majority of young people aren’t educated on the use and benefits of contraception. Health and sexuality are not topics of discussion among youth and their parents, and financial worries often take precedence over health and well-being, particularly for young women.

Dar es Salaam is one of the fastest growing cities in Africa as well in the world, with an estimated population of 5M. The high rate of rural to urban migration results in unemployment, which leads many young girls and young women to engage in risky sex work to meet their financial needs.

Throughout history and across the entire globe, a narrow idea of manliness has persisted. Being a man meant being fearless, worry-free, emotionless, invulnerable. Today there are still many cultures where men continue to adhere to this idea.

(UGANDA) I jumped up off the chair in excitement as I watched the local NTV News at 7:00 p.m. in a restaurant during one of my field visits. The people around me were amazed to hear Joseph shouting loudly “Amen! Aaammmmen!” on witnessing the announcement of the sachet alcohol ban. Over a year after since starting the fight to rid Gulu District of sachet alcohol, the local Ordinance Diocese of Northern Uganda (DNU), with support from World Renew, finally received approval for this ban by the attorney general in Kampala.

Dear Friends: A few years ago, I wrote about a visit to Salemata in southeastern Senegal, where I had met with people and we had discussed their communities and challenges. Since then, I have traveled to the region a few more times, and last month we finally went with the whole team to do a workshop in Kedougou.